The Many Benefits of Coffee

Caffeine is generally a cause for concern, as it is a common part of every coffee beverage, such as drip coffee, espresso, and pressed, among others.

On the other hand, coffee drinking is more viewed today as beneficial, and has a more positive effect on health. Therefore, what is this cause for this drastic change?

Thanks to the advancements in science and the benefits of research, coffee drinking has been studied more closely, in particular, to its relationship with various medical conditions.

Coffee was once viewed as a cause for cancer and heart disease. As it turns out, coffee consumption is not the cause to any form of cancer at all, and even helps prevent colon cancer.

Furthermore, a continuing study by the Harvard School of Public Health has reasoned that the benefits of coffee drinking far outweigh the risks.

What are the benefits of coffee? Aside from its immediate and obvious benefit of perking us up when we need to stay up at night, coffee consumption helps prevent various diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, gout, diabetes, and heart disease, among others.

Recent scientific discoveries on the benefits of coffee all come from its unique blend of anti-oxidants, and its caffeine content.

Anti-oxidants in the coffee help prevent cell damage. As our cells use up oxygen, they release radicals that cause damage to other cells. Anti-oxidants prevent and repair cell damage caused by these radicals.

Coffee is one of the richest sources of anti-oxidants in our daily diet. Furthermore, it does not matter which type of coffee you prefer whether it’s organic coffee, non-organic coffee, or espresso. Different kinds of coffee provide the same amount of anti-oxidants.

Caffeine, as it turns out, helps improve memory. The human memory is most effective early in the morning. As the hours go by, human memory performance drops.

Caffeine stimulates the brain and helps keep memory to perform at the same capacity as it did in the morning. This study was published by the University of Arizona in 2002.

It is interesting to note that their test subjects who took decaffeinated coffee did not experience the same effects, since decaffeinated coffee only consists of very miniscule amounts of caffeine.

Furthermore, caffeine helps increase endurance. This is why you take coffee when you need to stay up at night. Caffeine also shares this beneficial effect with other types of food such as dark chocolate.
This benefit of dark chocolate and caffeine has not been unnoticed for too long. Before, some Olympic athletes used to take 100mg caffeine pills to help with their performance before each Olympic event.

Today though, this abuse has forced the Olympic Committee to label caffeine as a restricted substance, as it gives an unnecessary advantage in Olympic events.

These benefits of coffee all stem from the rule that coffee should be taken in moderation. As with any substance, excessive amounts of consumption cause harm to the body.

Therefore, to benefit from these properties of coffee, it should be consumed moderately, which is around 3 to 5 cups per day.